Diablo 3 was heavily criticised for its itemisation which was eventually improved with the changes made in the Loot 2.0 update. Players can expect some changes with Diablo 4 items which will be welcomed. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the item system is likely to change throughout the game’s development and only as we get closer to release will things start to get fully nailed down.
Loot System
Diablo 4 loot drops are tied to the player, only you can see your Diablo 4 items that drop. Other players will only see it once you have picked it up and then dropped it.
Smart Loot
Smart Loot is feature of Diablo 4. This means a higher percentage of drops will be specific to your class.
Item Types and Classes
Diablo players will be familiar with the types of equipable items. A list of the main types we know about can be found below.
| One-handed Axe |  |
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| Two-handed Axe | |
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| Bow | |
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| Dagger | |
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| Crossbow | |
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| One-handed Mace | |
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| Two-handed Mace | |
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| Polearm | |
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| Scythe | |
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| Staff | |
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| One-handed Sword | |
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| Two-handed Sword | |
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| Wand | |
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Item Quality
As item quality increases, an item’s affixes will improve and will allow players to dip into areas of their talents that they may not have focused on in their talent tree. This will allow players to create more diverse character builds.
- Normal: 1 modifier
- Magic: 1 random modifier
- Rare: 2 extra random modifiers
- Unique: Fixed affixes, class-specific
- Legendary: 2 random modifiers and 1 Legendary modifier.
Legendaries are being designed to offer customised skills beyond the skill system.
Set Items Note
- Set Item: Set items may appear at some point but they will not be available at launch.
- Ancient Set: Set items may appear at some point but they will not be available at launch.
Additional Tier
It is also noted that there is one additional tier of gear that will unlock at the very highest difficulty of the game where there will be specific Uniques that will only drop at that level of difficulty. This is similar to Diablo 2's Death's Web or Tyrael's Might.
Affixes
Affixes (also known as Bonuses and Modifiers) are the special magical properties found on items in the Diablo games.
Legendary item Affixes are in the most part tied to the classes.
Legendary Items
Legendary items are coloured orange as they were in Diablo 3. Most characters will end up wearing legendary and other items as they level up. This is the top tier currently in the game.
In Diablo IV, some Legendary items will also be able to modify skills adding more diversity to character builds.
Set items could also hold equivalent power to Legendary items when they are added to the game. How your character diversifies will depend on how you use these latter tiers of items with your character build.
Should you have two Legendary items with the same affix, the stats won't stack, the one with the best roll will be the one in effect.
Runes and Runewords
Runewords proved highly popular in Diablo II. Runewords were a way for players to combine runes with items to give an item exceptional attributes. In Diablo II there was a total of 78 different runewords that could be used on basic grey items. Blizzard had planned for runewords in Diablo III but the idea was dropped during development at the time citing that “led to a lack of equipment variety”. Blizzard is now bringing them back to Diablo IV.
Diablo IV features two types of runes, condition runes and effect runes.
- Condition runes when socketed into an item will activate the next rune if a certain condition is met.
- Effect runes provide boosting effects and are activated when combined with a condition rune.
- When runes are combined they create what is known as runewords.
Glyphs
Glyphs are specific to the Paragon Board offering various benefits based upon the number of active tiles within their radius. These items are slotted into the Paragon Board.
Removed Systems
Ancient Legendaries Removed
Diablo IV will dispense with Ancient Legendaries as highlighted in the Systems Design update. The changes are described as follows and note that they are being replaced by a “new types of consumable item”.
We will be introducing a new type of consumable item (which we haven’t yet named). This item would be earned by killing monsters, just like other items. It would have one random Legendary affix on it, drops only in the late endgame, and can be used to apply that affix to any non-Legendary item.
This means a few things:
- We create an “elective mode for items” that is experienced after players have had time to experience Rare and Legendary items normally, as well as familiarized themselves with a variety of affixes
- This adds a way to introduce new methods of play without adding even more power to endgame items
- Rare items with the best affixes on them are always useful and retain value
Mythic Items Removed
In the December 2020 developer update, Blizzard revealed they were removing Mythic items for the following reason: [1]
We still like the idea of Mythic items, but we don’t want to create an item quality that invalidates all others, so they’re out for now. One of the things we loved most about them was the promise of getting random legendary powers on an item, so we folded that into our baseline legendary design.